It's pretty amusing watching people freak out over these things and call them nude-o-scopes and similar. Just like with gun-control laws, I don't care a lot about the underlying issue, but it's so tempting to take a stance just because the NRA folk are so bloody nuts.

The NRA folks are nuts? It's the gun grabbers who are calling to lock people away in jail for owning a rifle with scary parts, or for owning a sheet metal box with a spring in it.

None of the pro-gun folks want to send *you* to jail for being a douche, after all.

Why do you fear and hate your tax-paying, law-abiding neighbors so much that you want to see them spend hard time in jail for owning a gun?

You are being pedantic to make yourself feel important.... Why an engineer talking to the general public on Slashdot feels the need to point out the difference is unknown. Perhaps this engineer feels under appreciated?

Per company? Oh, look... we went out of business last night and...wouldn't you know it...reopened for business today under a new name.

How many large content producers are going to restructure periodically to make false DMCA requests? All that paperwork costs money, so you just have to make fraudulent DMCA requests cost more than they're worth.

He's got a point that many implementations make it hard to navigate the tree,

I don't even grant him that point. Hard compared to what? A flat list of posts that one should try to reconstruct the (naturally tree-shaped) discussion structure from? That's like saying we should be using square wheels because some round wheels make it hard to steer the car.

Many implementations don't give you ready access to the parent and siblings of a post. Also, it is naturally a tree, but often a thread of discussion is mostly a list, and implementations could often flatten those. But, point taken, most of those are not issues that require fundamentally reworking a tree, and they're all far better than the "wall of text" you get with a flat list.

In this particular case it is because Jeff Atwood hates threading. I think it's a huge mistake and he never manages to argue this choice in a compelling way, but I guess it's an emotional thing after all.

He's got a point that many implementations make it hard to navigate the tree, but it's not like it's that hard to implement what he wants (find my replies, see original) and be able to collapse trees.

It's using the same user-based moderation that has sunk most other discussion forums. Like-minded people will overwhelm the discussion, and moderate up people they agree with. Nothing to see here, move along.